Push
by pixel8
Summary: Sometimes all it takes is a little push....
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own The Office or these characters.**

**Note:** **For people who have already read this, I've only corrected some grammatical issues and made some changes to the very end. The rest of it is pretty much intact the way it was originally written.**

When he's not looking at her, he's watching the clock. He does this every day, but today especially. Today is his last day at work before his big vacation. The one he booked before he realized that he'd never traveled alone. Never traveled anywhere, really, outside of quick business trips, and now he's going almost all the way around the world, by himself. He thinks he might be crazy, or maybe just stupid, to think that putting physical distance between them would be enough to fix his problem. He took the extra days off because he can't stand to be here, with her, while she does her last minute planning. Besides that, he's got some last minute stuff of his own to take care of, so he's taking two days off before his flight leaves on Thursday. Hearing her on the phone is almost more than he can stand, so when his phone rings he's grateful for the interruption.

"Jim Halpert." It's a client. For a moment, he's able to forget about his dilemma and focus on work. He's distracted when Roy comes up from the warehouse to see if Pam's ready to leave for the day.

She makes excuses and then tells him she'll meet him at home later. She doesn't want to go home with him tonight, although she doesn't really know why. She knows Jim's leaving Thursday, and that today's the last day she'll see him before she becomes Roy's wife.

Roy's wife.

Just thinking those two words together used to warm her up, never all the way to her toes the way it happens when she catches Jim looking at her in a certain way, and not the way it did when Roy put his hands on her on Prom Night for the very first time, but still, warm and fuzzy and happy. Now, it leaves her a little cold. Cold enough that she doesn't even realize she's wrapped her sweater a little tighter around herself in Roy's wake, and that she's hugging herself tightly enough that her fingertips are white. She tells herself that it's just cold feet, that this is what she's been waiting for since practically high school. She tells herself that she just wants to walk out with Jim because she's going to miss him while he's gone.

"You okay, Beesly?" Jim looks at her curiously. She looks like she always does when Michael's given her a particularly difficult day, or when he's come up with yet another stupid nickname she's forced to pretend to find amusing. She nods.

"You're leaving Thursday?' She asks, even though she knows the answer. She's put a hash mark on the calendar for that day. She has one for today, that only she knows means it's the last time she'll see him for weeks, and one for Thursday. She's not sure exactly what that one means, but it's not just the day he gets on the plane.

He nods. "Yup. I'm going to be a world traveler. If you're lucky, maybe I'll bring you back a stuffed kangaroo. " _Or maybe I won't come back at all_. _The only thing keeping me here is you._

For the first time since the cruise on Lake Wallenpaupak, he's able to force a question out of himself. "Where are you and Roy going for your honeymoon?"

"Jamaica. Roy said I didn't need a passport for it, but I got one anyway because I was hoping he might surprise me with something slightly more exotic." She crinkles her nose at him in that adorable way she has, and quickly looks away. She doesn't want him to see that she's disappointed that Roy didn't think of Paris, where she could see works of art firsthand that she'd only seen in books, where she could imagine what it would be like to be a respected artist, or sit in a café and sketch people walking by.

Jim gets up and starts gathering up his things and she knows she's got to say something before he leaves, but she doesn't know how and she doesn't know what to say anyway. _I'll miss you. Don't leave me. I can't do this without you._

So she settles on, "Would you walk out with me?" and he looks at her, surprised and pleased.

"Where's Roy?" He pretends he didn't notice her sending him away. He's used to pretending he doesn't notice a lot of things when it comes to Roy.

"He wanted to go out with Darryl anyway, so I…."

"Got it. Ok, hang on one minute." And he reaches into his top desk drawer. It's the only one with a lock on it, but he rarely locks it. It's locked today, and Pam finds that perplexing. She watches him out of the corner of her eye as she puts on her coat against the still cool June evening. It was supposed to be warmer by now, but it still gets cold at night. And she sees Jim unlock the drawer and slip something thick and white and larger than normal envelope size in his pocket.

He finally looks at her, and smiles. "Ready!"

They stand in silence by the elevator and wait for the doors to open. When he looks down at her, she looks back up at him expectantly and smiles one of her half smiles like she does when she wants to say something.

"What?" He asks, with a lopsided grin. "Going to miss me, Beesly?"

It's a shot in the dark, really, but he hopes she'll say something. Anything. Just enough to tell him what to do.

But she doesn't say anything. She just quickly looks down at her sensible white tennis shoes that have worn gray since the Dundies and when the elevator doors open she's the first one in. She doesn't meet his gaze until the doors slide shut.

He feels a warmth spread from his toes to the top of his head, and he knows he must be turning a hundred shades of red, but the look in her eyes says that she needs him, that she's trying so hard not to say the things she wants to say because she shouldn't even be thinking them, let alone saying them.

"Jim, I want…" And he knows. He wants too. He reaches over and pulls the emergency stop because there are only two floors in the building and if he doesn't pull it, the ride will be over before he has a chance to do what he needs to do while he's still the decent guy taking his last chance. If he doesn't do it now, later he'll be the guy trying to steal another guy's wife. He doesn't have much time because the alarms are ringing and it's only a matter of time before Dwight breaks into the elevator with the fire axe.

He pushes her up against the wall of the elevator and carefully cups her face in his hands. He doesn't get any resistance, which surprises him. Her eyes are steadily on his, and when her tongue darts out to touch her lips he can't stand it anymore. His mouth is on hers and she's returning the kiss, slipping her hands up his hips to pull his shirt out of his pants so that she can feel his stomach against hers. He gasps a little when her cool hands slide up to his chest, and he moves his hand down to her waist.

She moans when he takes his hand off of her, but doesn't stop kissing him. He slides something into her coat pocket and then forces himself to break away from her. He pushes the stop back in and the elevator lurches back to life.

"Wait, Jim…" But he's already tucking his shirt back in and not looking at her. He can't look at her because he's afraid that if he does she'll see how broken he is. But she already knows. She could feel it the moment he broke off the kiss. Her heart falls into her stomach and she doesn't have any idea what to say to fix this.

"Listen, Pam. What I stuck in your pocket is for you. It's not for you and Roy, it's not a wedding gift. It's yours. You do what you want with it. Hell, don't even open it if you don't want to. But if you think you need a push, it's a push."

A push? What does he mean by that? She wants to ask, but he's already out the door and halfway to his car. She can't follow. If the warehouse guys see her they'll immediately run to Roy. They don't trust Jim, even though Roy doesn't think he's a threat.

When she pulls it out of her pocket, she knows what it is. She doesn't open it. She's already made a decision. She made the decision three years ago. Opening it would mean that she has options, and Pam knows better than that. She's never had options.

She remembers Jim's hot breath on her face, and the way he made her knees buckle when his hand went round to the back of her neck and the way he tasted like wintergreen Lifesavers and she'd wondered for so long how that would feel and now she knows that she's done more than just wonder, she's _waited_, as though it were an inevitability. And she remembers more than anything the way he looked at her, like she was the only thing in the world and she thinks she might have seen options in his eyes and she suddenly realizes that they've been there all along, in his eyes. She's never let herself think about it, but now she's thinking about it.

She slips her pinkie finger under the flap of the extra large envelope and cuts herself a little as she starts to tear.

And what she thinks is _push._


	2. Chapter 2

She opens the envelope in the parking lot and watches Jim drive out. He gives her a small wave without a smile, his lips pressed into a line. That bothers her more than she wants to admit.

She knows what it is before she takes it out, but she still covers her mouth and gasps when she actually sees it. A ticket. To Australia, and back, along with an itinerary of where Jim's staying and when. She notices the price on the ticket and is floored. $3000. After a couple of seconds, she starts to get angry. _How could he? What did he think was going to happen? How dare he put this kind of pressure on her?_

And she can hear him in her head. _You've got to take a chance on something, sometime, Pam._

_Maybe I could,_ she thinks. _No, maybe I SHOULD._

She slides the ticket and itinerary back into the envelope and leans back against her car, not trusting herself to stay standing without a little help. She notices the blood on the envelope and the stinging in her finger, and absently sticks the cut finger into her mouth. The copper taste is enough to snap her out of her reverie. She gets into the car and starts it.

_Maybe I will._

But she knows she won't. She'll do what she always does. She'll go home, like the good girlfriend, and she'll have the laundry folded and put away and a snack ready for Roy when he gets home, because he's always starving after a night out with the guys. And she'll probably have really boring sex with him, because he's always horned up after a night out with the guys, but usually too drunk to care about whether or not she gets off. The one consolation is that it's usually pretty quick. Not that sex with Roy is bad, it's just not much fun on nights like these.

And she'll get married on Saturday, like she's always wanted. She'll have the life she always wanted, the guy she always wanted, and the job she always, well… settled for.

_Except maybe I don't want that anymore._

Five hours later, Pam sits on the couch in front of the big screen television that Roy bought himself for Christmas this year. Not that she minds. She likes television as much as he does, and it's pretty nice to be able to watch movies in widescreen, the way they're supposed to be seen. Roy always turns the widescreen function off because he hates letterboxing. No amount of discussion will convince him that he's not missing the top and bottom of the picture, and that it's actually better. Pam watches a lot of movies alone.

When eleven o'clock rolls around and he's still not home from his night out with Darryl, she starts to get annoyed. His bachelor party is on Thursday and he doesn't need to be out all night tonight. She's also a little relieved, because she's got a lot of stuff on her mind, none of it close to being anything she wants to talk to Roy about. She _needs_ to talk to Roy about it, but she doesn't _want _to talk about it.

She runs her palms over the envelope in her lap. _Push. _She can hear Jim's voice in her head, and feel his hot breath in her ear and a shiver runs down her back. She feels her face flush and is suddenly less annoyed with Roy for not being home.

At the sound of the key in the door, Pam jumps up. The envelope. _Crap_

She heads into the spare bedroom where her suitcase is already half packed for the honeymoon, and slips the envelope under the swimsuit and cover up she's packed. Roy hasn't even started packing yet. He'll probably expect her to do that for him too. Her dress is hanging in the closet and she can see it because she's left the door open. She runs her hand down it and sadness washes over her. She feels the hot sting of tears and forces them back.

"Hey babe! You up?" Roy calls from the living room.

"Uh, yeah. Just working on packing. Did you have a good time?" She tries to compose herself before she goes out to greet him.

Roy grabs her in a big bear hug and drags her down onto the couch with him. "What's on tv, babe?"

He kisses her, and he tastes like beer and smoke. She likes the way he tastes when he's been out drinking, as long as he doesn't drink scotch. She knows it's a little weird, but she likes the taste of beer on him. But this time, when his tongue invades her mouth, it feels different. It feels like…_cheating. _She recoils a little, but manages to recover before he notices. She remembers how Jim's mouth felt on hers, and it helps her warm up a little, but it still feels _wrong_ kissing Roy.

_This isn't right. I shouldn't be feeling this way. _

"Roy?" She starts. She knows better than to discuss anything serious with him when he's drunk, but he's not a mean drunk. If anything, he's even less of a jerk when he's drunk. It's just that he won't take anything seriously and will try to blow it off in the morning. But she can't wait. She has to know.

"Why did you set a date?"

"What? What are you talking about?" He has a quizzical smile on his face, as if he thinks she's nuts. "Oh, look, American Chopper's on!"

"Seriously Roy, why did you finally decide to set a date?" She's getting irritated now, because she really wants to talk and he's not listening. She knows it's her fault for the bad timing, but she can't wait.

"Why are you asking me that? It's what you wanted."

Hot anger rises in her throat. She grits her teeth and presses her lips tightly together.

"What I wanted? What about what you wanted?"

Something in her voice finally tells Roy to shut off the television and pay attention.

"What's going on with you, Pammy? Of course it's what I want." He looks worried.

"Is it?" She snarls through her teeth. "Is it _really _what you want?"

Roy looks at her, desperately trying to figure out what she's getting at before he really screws up something and she completely blows up at him. It doesn't happen often, and she usually gets over it pretty quickly, but he doesn't want to deal with it tonight. Tonight he just wants to have a quickie and go to sleep. He has to be up early. But Pam wants a fight.

"You hesitated! Dammit, Roy. Why don't you just tell me the truth?"

Too late. He's in for a long night now, he knows. He sighs and settles back into the couch.

"The truth is, Pam, I love you. Of course I want to marry you. You want to get married, and I want to make you happy. Why is this a big deal?"

She blinks at him. She thought she'd be angrier, but she's just sad.

"I'm sorry, Roy," she says. "I thought it was what I wanted. But you don't want to get married, really, do you? You only set the date to keep me happy. You'd have been happy staying the way things were forever."

"Come on, Pam, that's not…"

"It's ok," She interrupts him. "I don't think I want to get married anymore. I don't think it's working."

_I think I just got used to the idea of us, and never thought about the reality of us._

She sees him visibly relax. It's not going to be a big fight after all, and he's relieved. She's not sure how she feels about his reaction. She didn't think she wanted to fight, but now that he's not fighting she's disappointed. She knows she's the one being unreasonable, but she can't stop herself.

_What is wrong with me?_

"Do you get what I'm saying, Roy?" She searches his face, and she doesn't see any anger there. She feels a pang of guilt. She shouldn't have done this while he was drunk. He might not even remember it in the morning.

"You think I don't want to marry you, but I do. It's cool, Pam. We can talk about it in the morning. I have to go for a tux fitting before work, so can we just go to bed?"

He rolls over and starts snoring pretty quickly, so she's spared the joyless quickie that she normally expects. When she's sure he's good and asleep, she slips out of bed and goes to the spare bedroom. She takes out the envelope, sits on the bed, and holds the smooth white paper against her chest, hoping that somehow the answers will all come easier. She doesn't even notice that she's crying until the tears roll down the tip of her nose.


	3. Chapter 3

"Come on, mate. You gave her a fair crack of the whip. Nothing to spit the dummy over. Why don't you just get yourself plonked and stop dwelling on it? Here's one, on me." The bartender drops a glass of beer onto the bar in front of Jim, with a shot next to it. "Or, better yet, you could give her a tinkle and find out what's on her mind. She's probably gone all wonky after the surprise you gave her."

Jim's gotten to know the bartender pretty well in the last couple of days, but he still doesn't quite speak Australian. It could have something to do with the fact that he's spent most of his time talking to other tourists, when he comes out of his room at all. But he's spent enough time with Billy that they understand each other just fine. Enough that Jim knows a tinkle has nothing to do with going to the bathroom.

"There will be no tinkling here, Billy. I know what's on her mind. She's getting married tonight. In about four hours."

Billy clucks at him sympathetically.

"No more damsels in distress for me. I'm done. Do you know any strapping young female farm hands that could put a hurt on me? Teeth are not actually required." Jim downs the shot and turns the glass upside down. "Whaddaya call them? Jillaroos?"

"Well, my sister packs a wallop, but you're up a gum tree. Might want to figure it out with your Sheila before you move on. You seem set on punishing yourself."

Billy starts wiping up the bar. No way is he setting up his sister with Jim. He likes Jim quite a lot, for a tourist, but he can tell Jim's got unfinished business. Besides that, his sister really could put a hurt on Jim if she wanted. And Billy knows the saga of Jim and Pam as well as the documentary crew at Dunder-Mifflin. Jim likes to talk when he's drunk.

"Ok, Billy. First of all, I have to move on. My girl isn't my girl. She belongs to someone else. Second, do you guys really talk like this, or are you screwing with me because I'm a tourist?"

Billy laughs, and it makes Jim laugh, too. Billy stops cleaning the bar and leans on his hands in front of Jim. He gives him a thoughtful look, and grabs a bottle from behind the bar. He does a shot with Jim, because it's the slow season at the hotel, and he's not exactly the employee of the month anyway. And he genuinely likes Jim, so he takes pity on him and plops one more shot in front of him. Jim's not a big drinker, so three in a row hits him hard and fast.

"Well, if you're going to just hang about whinging you might as well get rotten. Here's another. You're not going out of the hotel tonight, are you? But don't tell anyone where you got it," Billy sizes Jim up. "And don't blow your guts on my bar, either."

"You're a, what is it? 'Fair dinkum bloke', Billy," Jim raises the shot. "But if you keep this up I'm going to need a trash can next to me."

He's getting pretty bleary eyed, but after the shot he finishes the beer. The last couple of days have been pretty rough on him. He figures he deserves to tie one on. Every night. The morning he left, Pam called and hung up on his cell phone before he could answer it. He didn't call back. Now he's beating himself up about it, and drinking himself into an ulcer with a bartender who occasionally tells him he's got kangaroos loose in his top paddock, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

_I do have kangaroos loose in my top paddock. I'm still in love with a girl who doesn't love me. She made her choice._

He'd gotten to the airport early. His mom had made him pathologically early for stuff like that all of his life, and it was a hard habit to break. He was afraid to hope, but while he waited for his flight he watched for Pam. Even as the final boarding call was made, he took one last look. And he hoped. Maybe she was chronically late, although she'd never been late for work. He finally gave up and boarded. The seat next to him was painfully empty, but at least he had room to stretch out and sleep. The more he slept, the less he'd had to think about her. But he couldn't sleep much and he couldn't keep her out of his mind for very long.

_Why didn't she show? Did I really read her that wrong? Maybe I shouldn't have pushed._

When he got to the hotel, he dumped his stuff in his room and slept restlessly for what felt like days. When he finally came out, he went to the lobby bar. At some point, he got drunk enough to show Billy a picture of Pam and spill the entire story to him. It felt pretty good to get it all out.

But now he's off his face again, like Billy likes to say. He signs for his tab, leaving a huge tip for the bartender. "See you tomorrow, Billy."

"Let's hope not, Jim. Sleep it off. Go see something. Be a tourist, why don't you? Seems a bloody shame to travel so far to do something you could have done in Scranton. It's my day off, I could go with you if you need company."

Somewhere in his foggy mind, he appreciates Billy's concern. It feels good to be drunk right now. It feels fantastic to be so fogged up he can't think a complete sentence. He can't even find his room, so Billy sends security to help him. It's not going to feel so great in the morning, but at least for now he can have some peace and maybe get some real sleep without her invading his head.

He doesn't remember security walking him to his room and unlocking the door. He doesn't remember flopping onto his bed and looking at the clock and counting how many minutes Pam has been married. He doesn't remember trying to call her cell phone and getting her voicemail. And when he wakes up in the morning, he doesn't remember having turned the shower on the night before. All he knows is that his head is pounding and that he has to pee really, really badly, and that it tastes like a koala slept in his mouth.

He tries the bathroom door. It's locked.

_Damn it. What kind of idiot turns on the shower and then locks himself out? I can't call security. I'm already building a ridiculous reputation around here._

As he tries to decide what to do about the locked door, the shower shuts off.

_Holy crap. Someone is in my room. I'm in my underwear. Man, I hope it's at least a girl. Did I pick up a girl in the bar?_

When the door opens, it's her. Her eyes widen in surprise. He steps back and almost trips over the minibar.

"Jim, oh, did I wake you? I wanted to let you sleep. I was going to wait in the lobby but this crazy bartender said he knew me, and then he got security to let me in your room and it was such a long flight. I really needed a shower…I'm really sorry."

He doesn't know what to say. He's still dizzy from the hangover, and he doesn't quite believe he's just seen Pam walk out of his hotel bathroom in a fuzzy robe.

"Um." He says. _Say something, you idiot. This is what you wanted, isn't it? Tell her you love her. Tell her you drank yourself into oblivion at the thought of losing her._

"You stink," She says, with a little grin. "Why don't you hop in the shower?"

_Because if I let you out of my sight I'm afraid it might be a dream. You might not be here when I get back._

But what he says is, "Ok."

He grabs enough stuff to put on once he's out of the shower and cleans up. He takes longer than usual, because he's trying to figure out what it means that she came. _Did she dump Roy? The wedding must be off, right? Did she really pick me?_

But all of that thinking is useless, because by the time he's done getting dressed and brushing his teeth, he steps out into a room that's as empty as when he passed out.

_Shit. She did leave._

He hears a click and the room door opens. "Key, " she says, sheepishly, waving the card at him. "Security, remember?"

It doesn't matter. She's back.

"Jim, say something, " She pleads with her eyes. She searches his face, but he's still stuck. There's enough alcohol still running through him to make it tough to think quickly.

"You're late, " He says.

"I know. I had a lot of phone calls to make." She smiles at him, and it floods through him like a waterfall. He wonders if she can see that he's doing the best he can to keep it together. That it's all he can do not to reach out and pull her into his arms. She holds up a clear bottle full of yellow liquid. "Gatorade. It's great for a hangover. Do you know how hard it was to find this here? After the drunk message you left on my cell I thought I'd better pick some up for you."

When he doesn't say anything more, she looks down and starts nervously fiddling with the bag of donuts in her hand. She sets it on the table along with the Gatorade.

_I'm too late. That's what he meant when he said I was late. He meant too late. He doesn't want me anymore. _

So she tries again. "That was a pretty big chance you took. I mean, $3000. Wow."

"Not that big of a chance. It was refundable. Only to my credit card. I could have gotten the money back." _I finally speak and THIS is what I say to her? I'm totally blowing it. Stop._

"Oh, well. I. Um. Jim," She stops, and her eyes are on his. She fights the tears back, but they well up anyway. Damn him. Why isn't he making this easy for her?

_Because he already made it easy for me. He already gave me a push. It's my job now to jump._

"Jim, did I do the right thing? Tell me I did the right thing," The tears are rolling freely down her face, but she's holding back the part where it turns into great gasping sobs and the snot starts to run. If she can just keep it together for another second, she thinks she might be all right. "I…you…I want to be with you."

He finally moves toward her, pulls her to him and wraps his arms around her. For a long moment, all he can do is look into her eyes. She searches for some answer in his, and she sees something that she hopes is love. She doesn't know if it is. But when he slides his cheek against hers and she feels his lips and then his tongue, soft and hot on that spot between her shoulder and her neck, the feeling that runs down her spine is enough to make her dizzy. She slips one hand up to the back of his neck. He pulls back enough to look at her and puts his forehead on hers, noses almost touching. His breath is hot on her face and he smells like toothpaste with a side of bourbon. She's lightheaded and stunned by how badly she wants him. When he breathes out, she breathes in. She wants to be as close to him as she can, and taking his breath into her lungs is the best she can do right now.

He pulls her tighter against him, and fights the urge to throw her onto the bed and take advantage of what he's quite sure she's willing to give. His hands slide under her shirt and he hears her sharp intake of breath, but she doesn't stop him.

She lets out a long, shuddering gasp and presses harder against him. _If I could crawl inside him, I would._

He pulls away from her and smiles. When he smiles at her she believes that she'd do just about anything he asks her to do. He slides his hands around her waist to the small of her back and just that small movement makes warmth spread from the small of her back to the rest of her body. When he lowers his head and puts his mouth over hers, she feels like she's falling. She relaxes into him and returns the kiss and thinks in the back of her dizzy, dazzled mind that it's a good thing he's got his arms around her or she _would_ fall. When she pulls back, he's looking intently at her, his eyes serious and dark.

"You knew I'd come," she says.

"I hoped. I didn't know." He says. She looks up at him, and a flicker of doubt crosses his face.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes."

As she says it, she knows it's true. Everything in her life she's ever been sure of got thrown out the window a few days ago, but she feels more certain of this, of Jim, than she's ever felt about anything in her life. But more than that, when he's holding her she feels like she's home.

"So tell me, Jim. Did I do the right thing?" This time she smiles. A huge grin, a challenge, daring him to answer her in any way other than yes.

"I can't tell you you did the right thing, Pam, " he says, "but I can show you."

**Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! Your comments were what encouraged me to make this more than just a one chapter story.**


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